Bridging the gap with reality

According to 2024 statistics, while the Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index) and the People's Satisfaction Index with State Administrative Services (SIPAS) of Ho Chi Minh City have made a sharp increase in the rankings, the PCI Index has dropped 2 places, stopping at 29/63 provinces and cities. This reflects the change in administrative reform efforts, but from there, to permeate into the flow of economic management of the city, there are still bottlenecks.

In fact, enterprises highly appreciate the waiting time to be granted land use right certificates in the city - half of the national average (HCMC 14 days compared to the national average of about 30 days); difficulties in the lack of clean land fund (HCMC 19%; the national average 25%); slow progress in site clearance (HCMC 9%; the national average 19%). However, the efforts to implement transparency in accessing information (land) or the "midwife" responsibility of the city government have not been able to "recover" the barriers in legal institutions or equal competitiveness between economic sectors.

The paradox is that the Land Access Index increased by 34 levels but transparency only ranked 46/63 provinces and cities; or administrative reform in the PAR Index recorded improvements but “Informal costs” still increased. It is worth noting that some inverse indicators (ie the larger the value, the more negative the impact) reflect the difficulties of market entry procedures in the city, which are much higher than the national average.

For example, the rate of enterprises having to wait more than 3 months to complete all procedures to officially operate; the rate of enterprises having to cancel business plans due to difficulties encountered when carrying out procedures to amend business registration, procedures to request a conditional business license; the rate of enterprises having to amend or supplement business registration dossiers 2 or more times; the rate of enterprises having to delay/cancel business plans due to difficulties encountered when carrying out business registration procedures. Or the number of days waiting to receive information, request documents from the city, transparency in bidding and the ability to access legal documents need to be improved as they are higher than the national average.

In the PAR Index profile, in 2024, Ho Chi Minh City completed 100% of administrative reform tasks with 21 targets, 8 task groups and 111 specific tasks. However, from PAR Index to PCI - looking deeply into the component index scores will reflect the capacity (and responsibility) that still has many shortcomings in the public service operation apparatus. The evidence is that while the appraisal score has improved from position 40 to 22, the survey score of leaders and managers - those who directly implement administrative reform work - ranked 59/63. Overall, to streamline the procedural process or digitize to replace and eliminate "informal costs"..., we still have a significant gap with reality. Shortening this gap is an important command for upcoming actions!

NGUYEN QUAN CAT

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/rut-ngan-khoang-cach-voi-thuc-te-post795132.html